-On Three Poems Describing Music in the Tang Dynasty

Prelude

The Tang Dynasty is an era of poetry, an era of music ...

There are many works describing the beauty of music in the voluminous Tang poems, and talented artists have created a resplendent and dazzling artistic realm for us with their intelligence. It is a great pioneering work to make this beautiful music, which is audible and invisible, cross the boundaries of time and space and last forever. We might as well extract a few from this magnificent symphony and appreciate the charm of it.

the first movement: complaining in the sound of pipa

-the pipa on the river in Baixiangshan

Yuan and in June of the tenth year (815), Li Shidao sent someone to preside over Wu Yuanheng, the prime minister who put down the rebellion in the buffer region. Bai Juyi was then Prince Zuo Zanshan's doctor. Although he is not an admonisher, he first wrote a letter to remonstrate and requested to arrest the murderer. As a result, he was destroyed by his political enemies and was demoted to Jiang Sima. As he himself said: "Although it gets its name from the article, it will eventually offend the article". The blow left a deep wound on Bai Juyi's mind. This poem was written in the autumn of the following year after being demoted to Jiangzhou. After the cruelty of society and the indifference of the world, the poet had nowhere to pour out his grievances, and happened to meet the pipa girl of we are both unhappy -- to the sky's end. After listening to his emotional playing, the long-suppressed feelings rushed out and wrote this song. The poet touched the scene, inspired by events, put his own body feeling in the unfortunate experience of the pipa girl, and used the pipa girl to express his resentment. Furthermore, it exposed all kinds of unreasonable phenomena in feudal society and expressed sympathy for pipa girls and indignation at dark society.

The most outstanding achievement of Pipa Xing lies in its description of music. How does the author express the hard-to-capture musical image with the help of language? He used four techniques:

First, he used multiple metaphors.

Describe it repeatedly with a series of metaphors to show the complex and subtle sound changes in pipa music. "Urgent language" means that the big string is complicated and thick, "Autumn language" means that the small string is fine and dense, and the music of the pearls and jade plates is harmonious and pleasant, and the music of the flowers is flowing and flowing, and the music of the ice is flowing. Make the beautiful and repetitive melody and rhythm vivid and sensible.

the second is to express feelings with sound.

integrate the changes of pipa sound with the emotions of the players and listeners, and blend sound and emotion. In the poem, the cheerful flow at that time, sometimes high and exciting, sometimes temporarily resting, and sometimes low and suffocating tone, contains the feelings of pipa girl or joy or sorrow or pain or sorrow. Moreover, the sound pipa is the medium for the emotional communication between the player and the listener. The performer expresses his feelings in the music, and the listener feels emotional when he hears the music. It is composed of sentient beings, little by little letting her heart share everything with ours, other sentient beings and the feasters, all listening, covered their faces. However, it makes people feel that there is the image of a pipa girl in the music, and there is also the * * * sound of the listener. In this way, the combination of sound and emotion, painting sound with emotion, not only makes the music described more artistic charm, but also helps to deepen the theme of poetry.

the third is to see the truth in the virtual.

Write not only with sound, but also without sound, "Don't have any secret feelings, told even more in silence than they had told in sound"; "there was quiet in the east boat and quiet in the west, you can only see the autumn moon in the heart of the river", all of which are silent and set off sound, and emphasize the effect of music with rest. If seal cutting's "Counting White as Black", the application of traditional Chinese opera art to the stage. This technique of expression, which sees the truth in the virtual, is the traditional feature of ancient art in China, and it is different from Wang Wei's "too softly for anyone to hear, come and take photos tomorrow".

the fourth is to use verbs skillfully.

Using accurate verbs to express the verbs of "plucking, gathering, twisting, wiping, and picking" in the skillful fingering of the performer accurately shows the degree of change in the performance of the pipa girl, and turns the changeable fingering into a visual image, which deepens the reader's impression of the pipa girl's delicate playing skills and makes the music image more concrete.

Bai Juyi is a great poet. He has written more than 3, poems in his life. He is good at music theory and has a unique understanding of playing skills. He is familiar with instruments such as pipa, sheng, Zheng, fiddle, piano and fiddle, and has studied both folk music and foreign music. He especially likes playing the lyre. He once said, "If you have a good nature, the smell of dust will be empty" and "If you make it yourself, you will not listen to your lover". It's quite a pleasure. Before I wrote Pipa, I had described the playing of string Suo Le many times. For example, "the four strings are not like the sound of the pipa, and the beads are finely shaken and the bell is shaken" ("Listening to the pipa in spring and being a grandson"). "The first and second string cables, the autumn wind blows loose and the rhyme falls. The third and fourth strings are cold, and the night crane remembers the sound in the cage. " ("Five-string Play"). This description reminds people of the most wonderful text in Pipa Xing. In addition, such as "Listening to Li Shiliang's Pipa", "Pipa" and "A Brief Introduction to Pipa Playing" all indicate that he has been exposed to pipa playing. It is no accident that beautiful sentences are vivid. Therefore, he wrote the best pipa, which has been well-known for thousands of years. Not only in China, but also in the world literary world, they are outstanding. Therefore, Fang Fu Nan's Annotations on Li Changji's Poems called it "the best way to imitate sounds".

the second movement: the subconscious in the sound of the piano

—— Han Yu's Listening to the Clever Teacher Playing the Piano

"The Decline of the Eight Generations of Literature" has a famous poem describing music "Listening to the Teacher Playing the Piano". This article can best reflect the style of Korean poetry, which is "strange and dangerous". This essay "Imitating the Best of Sounds" once caused a pen and ink lawsuit. Wen Zhonggong (Ouyang Xiu) thought that it was not a piano but a pipa, while Song people Cai You and Xu Yanzhou (Poetry of Xiqing and Poetry of Yanzhou) thought it was a piano poem, and they praised it as "it is interesting to retire deeply" and "it is the most difficult for those who are good at playing the piano to work with these sounds".

We also think that this article is really about listening to the piano, and we have heard and described the wonderful sound of the piano. This piano also conveys the author's subconscious at that time.

we might as well have a taste.

when the piano sounds, it is very much in love with me, thinking and complaining like the love stories of young men and women, warm and soft, full of tenderness and sweetness; After the stroke, he became a tenor and became a warrior March; Teams of brave men went to the battlefield with high spirits; Then it became catkins between heaven and earth in Liao Kuo; Then a hundred birds contend and sing to the phoenix alone; Finally, climbing the peak, using both hands and feet, is difficult to walk and measure; Suddenly, the power and influence plummeted and the sound of the piano came to an abrupt end. It seems to be broken rather than broken, and it is endless and lingering.

Obviously, the author first used a series of metaphors (ten sentences and seven image metaphors) to describe the wonderful melody of the piano sound. The rhythm of the sound of the piano changes from high to low, from slow to urgent, from slippery to astringent, from hidden to hidden. Among them, more is to use synaesthesia to turn the fleeting piano sound into a concrete and sensible image. This metaphor is a great way for Han Yu. For example, his "Nanshan" used eleven novel metaphors in one breath. Another example is in "Send Cui Twenty-six Li Zhi", "If you collect the imperial examinations year after year, if you remove the epiphysis"; In "Pecking snuff and Waiting for Eleven", "Gold is golden millet, and the head of the hairpin is decorated with jade worms"; "Jingtan" "Fish and shrimp don't have to avoid it, just follow the dragon". They are all novel metaphors created by Gaga alone, and so is this one.

Li Bai also wrote "Listening to Shu Monk Rui Playing the Piano". The whole poem only uses three sentences and two images, "has brought me by one touch of the strings, the breath of pines in a thousand valleys. I hear him in the cleansing brook, the sound is ringing into the frost bell. " In contrast, one is like meticulous painting and the other is like landscape painting. The thick is extremely extreme, and the light is just right, and each has its own beauty, which cannot be elegant.

this kind of writing with figurative sound was inherited and carried forward in Lao Can's Travels in the late Qing Dynasty. The tone of Bai Niu's singing is as high as three or four festivals, and people seem to see the scene of climbing Mount Tai, which is really "the more dangerous it is, the more dangerous it is". This description can be regarded as the inducement of "climbing beyond the limit", which is artistic and vital, so we can get a glimpse of Class One.

However, this is only one end. The beauty of Korean poetry lies not only in writing the wonderful sound of the piano, but also in listening to it. The author feels a lot, sits up in the world, tears wet his clothes, "stop it" and don't let it play again, so as not to "put ice and charcoal in my intestines", and it is hot and cold, so how can it be forbidden? On the one hand, it is undoubtedly exaggerated (deliberately exaggerated), saying that the sound of the piano is touching; On the other hand, from the specific feelings, the author highlights the * * * sound of the soul. The theme of Qin music also seems to pour out Han Yu's heart and life. Because the poet combined with his time and his half-life experience, the political tide fluctuated and the official sea was ups and downs. In particular, the sound of the piano reminds me of his past days of being rejected, demoted, far away, and ready to die. Isn't this the refraction of the projection of the times in poetry? We can clearly feel a subconscious existence of heart trembling at that time from the implication of the author.

This may be the reason why Su Shi identified his weight and made it the best in Qin poetry.

the third movement: the magical kingdom amid the sound

—— Li He's Poems by Li Ping

Shi Gui Li He is a poet. "Twilight clothes broken Zhao Yueqiu, poetry night Oriental white". His "Li Pingyou's Quotations" depicts us a magical music kingdom in different ways. Its artistic quality is far higher than that of his contemporaries Gu Kuang's "Li Ping Plays the Song of Rugby" and Juyuan Yang's "Listening to Li Ping's Playing Two Rugby Songs", which were also called "Zhiwen" by predecessors.

The outstanding achievement of this poem in describing music lies not in its rich content, beautiful melody and bright rhythm; Instead, it is a metaphor for music, and through various myths and legends, it describes the effect of music; It has created an artistic realm interwoven by heaven and earth and immortal figures. Bring readers into the colorful and magical music kingdom. He described the graceful voice like this: crisp as Kunshan jade, bright as Fengming for nine days, sad as lotus tears, happy as vanilla smiles. This sound made the fish dance dumpling, and even Wu in the moon palace was moved to sleep; The vault was shattered by the sound of a graceful voice; The gravel in The goddess patching the sky turned into autumn rain.

Although the genius of the author lies in the use of all kinds of beautiful and touching legends and stories to express the magical musical realm. There are three artistic achievements in his allusion to music:

First, he uses it secretly and flexibly.

This poem is flexible and diverse with allusion to music, and it can be used openly and secretly. For example, "an empty mountain condenses clouds and does not flow" implicitly uses the truth of Qin Qing's "elegy, sound shock trees, very sonorous" contained in Liezi and Tang Wen; "Motome's Sorrow" codified "Han Shu, Suburb Sacrifice Records" as a secret use; "Dream into the sacred mountain to teach the old Ji" secretly uses the "Sou Shen Ji" as a thing that the lady can play; "The old fish dances with thin waves and dumplings", but there is an allusion to playing the drum and piano in Liezi and Tang Wen. As for "Breaking the Rock", "Jiang E Tizhu", "Fengming" and "Lan Xiao", they are so compatible that there is almost no trace to be found. But one thing is clear: the author randomly arranges in the sea of history, enters the pen, seems to be handy, and is actually carefully scrutinized to express his needs. This article takes allusion to music, which is mostly a musical fact. This shows that the author's imagination is endless. Even if Nu Wa is invited, experts don't have a second opinion. It is thought that "teasing autumn rain" in Li He's poems can't help but remind people of the story of Shi Kuang's heavy rain on the piano ("Gathering of Arts and Literature"). The comparison of "rain" here shows that Li Ping can also call the wind and call the rain by playing the piano, which has the level of Shi Kuang. In order to exaggerate the heavy rain, I remembered that the sky was broken and it was raining cats and dogs. It is also associated with "Huainanzi?" What happened to The goddess patching the sky in Xiao Ming Xun; On the other hand, the rock-breaking has greatly strengthened the momentum of the rain. This is what people feel. Li Ping's power seems to have surpassed that of the heavy rain in Shi Kuang, which shows the high skill of playing the piano. However, Zhao Yi thinks that although this sentence is dangerous and meaningless, it only feels "unreasonable", which the author thinks is biased. "Breaking the Rock" has become an idiom, which shows that its image is still enough to move people's hearts.

the second is ambiguity.

Except for general accidents, all the functions of reality have multiple information storage. The general intention is virtual and figurative, indicating the unusual performance effect. It shows that Li Ping can compare with or even surpass Qin Qing's elegy, Jiang E's happiness, Motome's sorrow and resentment, Shi Kuang's playing the piano, and his wife's playing the piano and the guqin. Because of its flexible use, its function is not limited to this. Sometimes it can also play a role in rendering the atmosphere. For example, "an empty mountain condenses clouds and does not flow", which is like the empty and sad real environment when Li Ping plays; It is also like the musical effect of music. This kind of "very sonorous" is rich in meaning, which is reflected with the reality of music effect. Even the allusions that do not directly produce music contain many meanings. "Twenty-three silk moving purple emperor" is realistic. It is well documented that Li Ping really touched the emperor by playing the piano. However, we can also imagine that Li Ping's birthday touched the purple emperor in the Taiqing Palace, which is said by Taoism, and it has a great influence on the fairy world, which is not bad. The former is nothing more than a metaphor for reality and a metaphor for people with gods, while the latter is a metaphor for gods with people, with endless charm. Other allusions such as "autumn rain" and "Wu quality" in the poem also have the wonderful effect of different songs and the same work.

the third is full of emotion.

Li He is a passionate romantic poet, and his poems are full of passion. And many allusions in the poem are also stained with heavy emotional color. The gloomy clouds are empty, the autumn rain is sudden, Jiang E cries, the dragons and dragons dance, the immortals don't sleep, the ghosts and gods are emotional, the jade is broken, and the flowers are crying and laughing. As Yao Wenxie's Notes on Poems in the Valley said, "The gods of heaven and earth, the spirits of mountains and rivers are all inspired", such as "The old fish dances with thin waves", which is rich in connotations. The old fish and thin dumplings always make people feel powerless to leap, but they dance with waves. Why? Music is touching. "Coagulation of clouds does not flow" changed very sonorous's passivity into initiative, and clouds became emotional things, which made him miss and love, so that he didn't want to flow. It can be seen that in this poem, whether people, gods, ghosts, immortals, living or inanimate, they are depressed, sad, crying, laughing, surprised, dancing or jumping, all with strong emotional color and filled with the poet's passion.

Li He is also a poet who is proficient in music. "In the cool house, I feel sick when I hear the strings, and the medicine bag will leave the dragon for a while." Love music, even cure diseases, with such a life foundation, coupled with magical imagination, the music kingdom is extraordinary. The wings of imagination transcend the boundaries of time and space, calling for wind, rain, thunder and lightning, driving away ghosts and gods, enslaving vegetation into fish, mobilizing the sun, the moon and the stars, creating a bizarre music world and giving people beautiful artistic enjoyment.

Su Shi won three of them, and the sound of a cave in the red wall, "dancing in a secluded valley, weeping for a lonely woman", is the result of learning from Li He. Just as Du Mu said, "The whale's swaying and throwing, the ghosts and monsters, is not enough for its illusion."

The fourth movement: hummed, whispered-and then were intermingled

-Comparative appreciation of three poems

When we enjoyed these beautiful and moving pieces of music, we were deeply impressed by the superb art of the poets. The reappearance of this kind of art seems to be that we have heard the wonderful music of the music artists of the Tang Dynasty and witnessed their dazzling elegance. This is the reappearance of art.. Poetry and music, originally a family, can express feelings and shape images, but in different forms; But art is interlinked. Poets, with their outstanding talents, reproduce the art of magical music. We might as well listen to their symphonies and, conversely, look at the art they reproduce.

In On the Beauty of Music, Hans Rick of Austria said, "All imaginative descriptions, characterization and explanatory explanations of musical works are figurative or wrong". The performance of music is often figurative, which he is absolutely right. Book of Rites? Yue Ji said, "Singers are numerous."